October 17, 2011 – Kurt and Sydney Score Big!

A few days ago, the fishing had been really good north of the harbor.  I had fished by myself the day before and caught 4 nice ahi in the 130-160lb range so I decided to take Kurt and Sydney up that way on their full day charter.  The water was a little bit more bumpy than usual and Syndey was feeling a little sick a few hours into the day.  She stuck with it and we found the North Porpoise school coming out of the wind line just outside the airport.  On our first pass I saw a big mahimahi feeding in front of the porpoise and it came charging in and ate a 12″ marlin lure on the long corner.  It fought pretty good and Kurt quickly got it to the boat.  It was a nice one by Kona standards and went about 35lbs.  On our next pass in the school I marked a few ahi down deep and they didn’t bite.  After a few more passes,  I had a nice mark on my sounder at 30 fathoms and a big ahi railed the stinger lure.  Kurt was upstairs with me and was shocked by the amount of line peeling off the Fin Nor 80.  We got him in the chair and after a 20 minute fight he caught his first ahi that weighed 140lbs.  Since the water was pretty rough we continued to troll the school and not deploy the greenstick which is how we usually catch our ahi.  Pass after pass we marked fish but they wouldn’t bite.  At about 11am, the short rigger came down hard but not much line came off the reel.  Maybe another ahi that didn’t know it was hooked?  Nope, it was a big bull mahimahi that had both hooks buried in the corner of it’s mouth.  Kurt again hopped in the chair and fought his second mahimahi to the boat that weighed an impressive 43lbs!  By this time the water calmed down a bit at the porpoise started to move together a little better.  Agian, we saw marks but no bites.  Then on the outside of the school the long rigger came down hard and line melted off the reel.  This was no mahimahi!  Kurt strapped himself in and in about 30 minutes landed his second and largest ahi that weighed 161lbs!  Sydney was a trooper and stuck with us all day even being seasick.  That’s not a good feeling so we called it quits and headed home with a nice load of fish!